Last month I posted that a local oncologist said to my support group that the duration of hormone therapy was 18-24 months duration. Not specific to men with widespread metastases. All men on treatment. To my surprised reply she said the data support her comment. I searched the internet for some support for her position. This was the best I could find:

"Often quoted currently is the fact that at the time ofdiagnosis, 50-60% of patients are found to have advanceddisease after careful staging. Of this number,30-40% will have advanced local disease whereas theremainder (30-35%) will have distant metastases.'"

"The median survival of patients with metastaticdisease is 24-36 months from the time of diagnosis oftheir metastases"

"Bilateral orchiectomy continues to be the "gold standard'of hormonal therapy for metastatic prostatecancer"

So several top researchers in our disease (E. David Crawford, Mario Eisenberger and others) wrote in the journal Cancer that received wisdom from the 1980's and earlier showed most patients had advanced disease at diagnosis (likely true) and overall survival (not duration of hormone success) was 24-36 months from metastatic diagnosis (on average likely true at that time). Also orchiectomy was the best treatment at that time. This indicates how far things have advanced in prostate cancer treatment. As a patient I am amazed how far away such thinking is although it was the best available at that time. A look into our medical past.

I still do not know how a MO today would be quoting numbers derived from this period of far away history. I am glad I knew enough to disregard her comments.